Americas News
Castro leads Cuba by phone, former Nicaraguan leader says (Roundup)
By DPA
Aug 9, 2006, 19:00 GMT

Managua/Havana - Sandinista leader and former Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said Wednesday that Cuban President Fidel Castro 'is already active' and guiding the island's government by telephone.

Ortega made his comments by telephone to Nicaraguan radio station Radio Ya from Havana, where he arrived three days ago. He said Castro is going through 'a gradual process of recovery' after undergoing surgery on July 31.

Ortega, who governed Nicaragua from 1985-90 and is the current presidential candidate of the leftist Sandinista Front, said he did not know when Castro could reappear in public.

'I think that thanks to science, thank God, we will at some point have Fidel at the head of his functions again,' the Nicaraguan politician said.

Castro, who turns 80 on Sunday, underwent surgery for intestinal bleeding and earlier this month delegated power to his brother Raul. Neither Castro has appeared in public since the announcement.

Also Wednesday, Cuba rejected as 'interfering and destabilizing' US television broadcasts to the island from Miami, Florida, and warned that anyone distributing the signal would be penalized with substantial fines and up to three years in jail.

The Cuban government has long tried to jam the frequencies of the US broadcast Radio and TV Marti, and it is not known how many households on the island are capable of receiving the signal.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice earlier this month attempted to address Cubans through the station, calling for democratic change with the longtime Cuban leader Castro temporarily sidelined.

'A large part of the programmes received that way in Cuba have a destabilizing, interfering, subversive content, and summons more and more to the realization of terrorist activities,' the official Communist party newspaper Granma said.

The daily also criticized what it called the 'annexation plans' of US President George W Bush and the alleged distribution by US authorities in Havana of computers, short-wave radios, satellite dishes, decoding devices, faxes and photocopiers.